


Betrayal

by TehRaincoat



Series: Bounty Hunted [5]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, poor mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 15:23:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16835314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TehRaincoat/pseuds/TehRaincoat
Summary: Azula reaches into herself again and attempts what she had attempted before, and there is nothing.





	Betrayal

**Author's Note:**

> I think I didn't mention in the other comments on this series, but my main diversion from canon for this series is that Azula lost her bending at the end of the war as well. I think it would have been a necessary measure to take given the fact that she had become a danger to herself as well as those around her, but on top of this, I've always considered it a good way to launch her character forward post the series.
> 
> Her bending basically defined her in ATLA and it's loss can be seen as a catalyst for her character to make a journey of its own. Whatever the outcome may be.

Azula comes to lying on a soft grass mat, the expanse of them reaching out passed her coming into focus slowly. She feels feeble. Empty. She’s been drained of all of her energy and she barely remembers why or how. Her hands twitch. She takes a sharp breath in through her nose.

She notices the toes of Zuko’s shoes where he’s hesitating by the door to the room.

Azula moves lightning fast to a seated position and the room spins around her as though she were free falling and then she really does fall, the floor almost solid under her when she makes contact with the mats once again. The girl moans, feeling sick.

She hears him come forward, though Zuko’s footsteps are light as a cat’s, and feels the warmth of his hands through the thin cotton of her clothes, rolling her over gently. Azula frowns at the wheeling roof of the building (wherever she is…she has yet to figure this out), and then attempts focusing her gaze on her brother’s face. He looks strained, worried, and she feels her mouth curl into a soundless snarl at his expression.

“Let go of me!” Her voice sounds foreign in her ears. Zuko’s hands spring back as though he’s been burned.

Azula realises that her own hands are unbound, and she swings for him, reaches for the flames that have always been at her beck and call. Zuko catches her by the wrist, holding her hand away from where it had nearly made contact with the already scarred portion of his face, but it’s not this which gives her pause.

A frown tugs at her brow.

Azula tries again. Even with her wrist in his grasp, she can still heat her skin, still create a flame to threaten him with.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing…

.

.

.

Azula’s breath comes out in a wheeze, and she tries again, more desperately this time. Zuko’s grimace doesn’t go unnoticed.

“What’s — why can’t I — What’s happening,” she demands. Azula’s words slur as though she has had too much to drink, and her body sags again despite her best efforts at making herself rise.

“What did you do to me?” This time Azula’s voice is small, frightened. She doesn’t like the sound of it. Her pulse races.

“Azula, please take a breath.” Zuko is unnervingly calm.

Her eyes search his face frantically, attempting to read whatever it is that she can see there. He closes his own eyes briefly before opening them again, and she sees resolve.

“I need you to calm down before I can tell you anything, Azula, just breathe.”

Azula obeys, despite her better judgement. She takes in one long breath and then another, calming the palpitations in her chest, her captured hand curling and uncurling from a fist for a moment before she finally, simply, goes limp.

“What’s happening,” she asks again, and this time there is a sob on the edge of her plea. Zuko reaches down with his free hand and takes hold of her other arm, dragging her into the seated position she has been attempting to place herself in this entire time.

Azula leans heavily into the strength of his grasp.

“There’s no easy way to say this to you,” he begins, “so I’m just gonna say it. You haven’t been yourself, not since The Boiling Rock. You definitely weren’t yourself on the day of the comet, and after all of the reports from the staff and from everyone that you banished and after seeing how unravelled you were becoming — “ Zuko takes a breath, looks away from her.

Azula trembles, and she isn’t entirely certain that the tremors are only from fatigue.

“Aang…Avatar Aang and I decided that it would be best…for your safety, and that of everyone around you, if you couldn’t bend anymore. It’s an equal fate to what dad faced for his crimes. Your crimes were of equal magnitude…”

A harsh laugh leaves her lungs.

“What?” She searches his face for some sort of joke. Some sort of _ruse_. This cannot possibly be the truth, because there’s no such thing as someone’s _bending_ being taken away and she’s not — they cannot have…

Azula reaches into herself again and attempts what she had attempted before, and there is nothing.

An inhuman cry escapes her throat and she tries to pull away from Zuko, eyes wide with panic. She feels like she’s floating, not really in her body. She can hear her own screams but she can’t seem to stop them, and they rip raw from her throat of their own volition.

Zuko drags her close, trying to contain her, stop her from hurting herself, most likely. She rails against him but to little avail.

“Azula please!”

Her screams devolve into wracking sobs. Her brother holds her. The healers come into the room.


End file.
